At
the same time, forest fires in and around the Arctic circle
have increased in recent times.

A study
published in 2013 found
that the Boreal Forest, which stretches around the top of the world
from Russia, through Scandinavia to Canada, was burning at an
"unprecedented rate."

This
summer, as the European press has been filled with stories about
heatwaves and wildfires in the Mediterranean, fires in northern
countries have also increased.

Just
last week, Climate
Central reported
that British Columbia in Canada was experiencing its second worst
wildfire season of all time, with reports of smoke being seen as far
away as Oregon in the United States.

Threat
to icesheet

The
increased incidents of fire in Canada is having a demonstrable impact
on the Greenland icesheet.

In
June, scientists
from the U.S. traced
vast amounts of soot from Canadian wildfires to the ice in Greenland,
warning that the particles could accelerate the melting of the
icesheet.

Marco
Tedesco, a polar scientist at the Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory at
Columbia University, told Energydesk that the fires appear to be
"exceptional in terms of the area covered" and said that
more research was needed to examine how climate change was impacting
the territory.

"From
a scientific point of view, we want to understand the sources of this
fire. Was it an accident or a one-time event? Or was it part of a
longer term trend that goes beyond the satellite data in 2000? What
are the temperatures like?

"How
many of these incidents have there been over the years? The good news
(if any) is that today we have much better tools (remote sensing)
than even just a few years ago and a higher number of scientists
focusing on these topics.

This hopefully will help us to shed some
light on this very interesting event."

08
09 2017 Smoke from fires in Russia entering the Arctic Ocean near the
Laptev Sea,

09
09 2017 Smoke in British Columbia, Washington, and Montana. Smoke is
not harmless to health.